Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Dr. Tarnoff
11 December 2019
“It is only through the stories we tell ourselves about our past that we can begin to
understand that past” (Robillard 7). As knowledgeable humans, we believe that we have a
refined idea of who we truly are. However, if someone were to ask us to talk about ourselves, we
would be silent and realize, “Wait, I don’t know myself.” Throughout our lives, we are given the
chance to speak about our lives and relay our experiences to each other every day through
conversation. These instances, though, happen in the blink of an eye and we rarely get the chance
to reflect on the events we have lived through. As students, we aren’t granted the luxury to write
about ourselves often and when we are given those assignments, it’s often to please our teachers
or a board of college administration personnel. We can tell ourselves stories about our past
verbally, but it would not be as solidified compared to if we wrote about ourselves, without
various teachers. It was even more unlikely that we would be asked to speak about our cultural
narratives. Even if I was given the task to do so, I believe I would not have been able to provide
an introspective reflection due to the lack of cultural diversity in my high school’s curriculum. In
various history classes, I rarely heard the history of my Filipino culture and was only taught to
see through a Eurocentric perspective. While the stories of Caucasian history spanned over
hundreds of pages, the stories of Asian culture, let alone Filipino culture, were summarized down
to two paragraphs, . The books that were assigned for us to read in English classes portrayed
only the voices of white protagonists. Every so often, teachers would assign texts with Asian
main characters like The Joy Luck Club and A Thousand Pieces of Gold, but they were often
assigned in portions to different groups or made to read as a winter break assignment. Such
novels were the works that were given the least amount of time and we were never able to fully
engage in the text before quickly moving on to another book from a white perspective. My own
identity was not presented in my education. Because of this, at times I felt disconnected from the
school curriculum. I understood the necessity of seeing from another’s point-of-view, but I also
felt that I was missing a part of myself in the classes I was required to sit through.
In the film, Precious Knowledge, the students at Tucson High School display similar
emotions as the lack of representation in their education made them less interested in their
courses. However, with the implementation of a Mexican American Studies Program, the
students begin to take hold of their education and even become passionate in the course material.
Similar to the students at Tucson High School, I was aware that this lack of cultural
understanding was hindering my learning abilities, but I didn’t quite know how to voice these
feelings in a clear and efficient manner. I also didn’t know if other Asian students of color felt
similarly about this issue. It wasn’t until a meeting with my school’s Asian affinity group, the
Asian Student Coalition or ASC, that I began to see that my high school’s curriculum needed to
change.
Throughout high school, I participated heavily in ASC. Our meetings would consist of
dialogue surrounding general Asian-American issues and problems with the representation of our
Morales 2
community within the school. During one particular meeting, we began to speak about what
changes we’d like to see around campus and how ASC could aid in solving those issues. Still
unsure of how to phrase my problem, I raised my hand and spoke about the lack of
representation of Asians and Asian-Americans in my history classes and expressed how I felt:
that my education was somehow being devalued over a majority of students. Though I was
nervous about the reactions of my fellow club members, I was surprised and greatly relieved to
hear that they held similar grievances towards the curriculum. Brainstorming ideas and possible
solutions, we came to a collective agreement; we would write a letter to the high school’s
administrative board stating our issues with the current history and English curriculums and how
We spent various meetings constructing this letter and making sure that we were keeping
a level of professionalism while still expressing our feelings effectively to the reader. We
needed to be aware of our word-choice and the different stories we decided to tell. In the essay
by Tony Scott, “Writing Enacts and Creates Identities and Ideologies,” he elaborates on this idea
of using writing as a tool in identity formation and examining structures of power. Scott
explains, “...Writing is deeply involved in struggles over power, the formation of identities, and
the negotiation, perpetuation, and contestation of belief systems.” (Scott 49). ASC chose to
express our feelings through a letter as opposed to other forms of communication because we
were aware of how trusted and idolized the practice of writing was. We hoped that through this
form of expression our experiences and necessity for a broader cultural education would be taken
seriously by the administrative board. After several drafts, we finally sent the letter to the
higher-ups and awaited a response from them, only to be harshly faced with a rejection of our
Morales 3
requests. Though saddened and exhausted from our high school leaders’ harsh answers, we
continued to push for representation and garnered more stories from the student body. We would
not back down until we were met with a compromise or a promise for change from the
administrative board. Ultimately, we were granted one of the proposes from our letter; the
readings for English classes were to include more protagonists of color and stories from different
Asian cultures. Although this proposition wasn’t implemented during my time in high school, I
was thrilled to hear that at least some change would come from our determination for more Asian
representation. It would mean a greater intersection of culture and education, specifically from
an Asian perspective, and I could not have been happier with this outcome.
Knowing about one’s culture and cultural identity is an aspect of individual storytelling
and identity. How can we tell ourselves stories about our own past without knowing the stories
of our own people? In understanding the history of our cultures, we gain another level of
reflection upon our own narratives. We can understand why we are treated in a certain way, why
we experience aggressive actions from a stranger, and how our positionality affects our everyday
lives. Through learning about our cultural history in the classroom and writing about it, we
become more passionate in our research and in continuing our education for the sake of personal
discovery and growth. Kevin Roozen touches upon this concept in the essay, “Writing is Linked
to Identity,” proposing, “The act of writing, then is not so much about using a particular set of
skills as it is about becoming a particular kind of person.” (Roozen 51). Similarly, the act of
learning, especially in academia, should not center around learning only Eurocentric and
American history because it is perceived to be “more significant”; it should heavily include the
voices of POC and their histories as well. When we learn about ourselves in our textbooks in a
Morales 4
positive and informative light, we value education more and see that our culture and identity
matters.
Personal narrative works as a means of reflection for students to truly look at their
positionality and aspects of identity in order to make sense of the world. However, true personal
narrative and an effective education cannot be achieved without knowledge of one’s cultural
history. Realizing that there was something wrong with my high school’s curriculum in terms of
Asian representation, I was able to examine how important culture is when it comes to my
engagement with education and how to use the power of words to make a change. When culture
is separated from education, or when a student feels they are not being properly represented in
their classes, it strips learning of its true curious and transformative qualities. This idea is echoed
in Paolo Freire’s text, “The Banking Concept of Education,” in which he explains, “The
outstanding characteristic of [the] narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their
emphasize the importance of intersecting culture and identity and how learning one’s
positionality in the world is activism. I believe these values are especially prominent in the
Ethnic Studies Department, a sector that has been criticized and illegitimated for decades. In
applying the same introspection I did in high school, I desire to see how representation of POC
can be increased in the SCU community and how we can work towards supporting the ethnic
studies instead of constantly pushing against it. We must work to keep the classes which
encourage cultural education and activism for they are what allow students to truly reflect upon
their identity.
Morales 5
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers.
10th ed., edited by David Bartholomae, January 2014, 216-227. Accessed 17 September
2019.
Robillard, Amy. College English, “It’s Time for Class: Toward a More Complex Pedagogy of
16 November 2019.
Roozen, Kevin. “Writing is Linked to Identity.” Naming What We Know, e dited by Linda
19.
Scott, Tony. “Writing Enacts and Creates Identities and Ideologies.” Naming What We Know,
Morales 6